Fred Hess, President, has more than 25 years of marketing experience within several industries ranging from small businesses to large corporations. His e ffective leadership and proven ability to create, develop and implement strategic marketing plans have been obvious throughout his career.
Written by Fred Hess
I remember back a number of years ago when it was said “the Internet is the death of retail”. No one will want to go to a retail outlet anymore when they can buy it online. Of course we all know what happened…the great “dot com bust”. Before the great “bust” the prevailing thought was you can put anything online and it will sell like hotcakes…yeah right. What actually happened was the “old” way of selling products eventually adjusted to the “new” way of selling products. Yeah of course, Internet giants like Amazon and EBay have survived and even thrived…but only after a long and unprofitable haul. Here’s my point…the current prevailing “thought” that social media is king and let’s call it “old” media is dead…I’m not buying it!
Now before all you Web 2.0 social media “experts” line up to burn me at the stake…hear me out. I am a huge believer in the Web 2.0 movement and in particular social media and how it is a great marketing tool. As a true marketer, anytime I can have a conversation with my customer and determine exactly what they want/need I’m in. The Internet used to be a good secondary marketing research tool…now with social media it’s a very good primary marketing research tool. Now our clients can literally have a virtual focus group/customer panel without a huge amount of expense…does it get any better than that?
Ok meat and potatoes time…even my 22 year old daughter is getting tired of the commercialization of Facebook…one of the “big three” of social media. Her main complaint to me is “Dad, if they want to send me a commercial that is what TV is for”. So what’s up with that? Is she saying there is a time a place for everything? Facebook…good for personal stuff…TV/radio/newspaper good for commercial stuff. And yeah I know the younger crowd is “first adopters” and will probably abandon Facebook just like they abandoned MySpace. But, here’s my point, do you really believe that “old media” is going to just accept their death and go away? Those that understand what is going on…and how to deal with it are going to survive and even thrive…TV in my mind has the inside track and radio if they understand the concept can come back from the dead. Newspaper? Well…they have content providers…and content is king…if they understand that it’s not ink on paper anymore they can adapt and thrive as well.
Final thought? Just like the dot com boom and bust…this will shake out as somewhere in the middle. Old media meet new media…like it or not.
A couple of weeks ago on the heels of Ford's appearance before some Congressional committees, I had to deal with a major firestorm online.
In short, the issue was that there was a Ford fansite called TheRangerStation.com that received a cease & desist letter from Ford, and the owner posted that Ford was asking for $5,000 and the URL to be turned over. It turns out there was much more to the story. The owner was selling counterfeit Ford goods, and together, we reached a reasonable solution to the situation.
Ron Ploof, a B-to-B social media consultant, has created a completely masterful case study of what happened here. I'll leave it to him to set it up, tell the story, and draw out the lessons, here in this Scribd document.
In the end, it's created a point of conversation for us internally (and externally, I might add). I've committed to creating a more fluid conversation between Ford's Communications area and Office of General Counsel, so we don't run into these surprise situations again. We'll still need to protect the brand and our licensees, but if we can work with enthusiast sites, we'll be in a much better place.
Related links:
Interview on For Immediate Release
Real-time review of the day's events on Voltage Blog
Left the Box's assessment
What are your thoughts? Would you have done anything differently?